FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a known approach 1000 to issuing financial documents with payments. According to this known approach, an electronic payment 80 and a financial document 45 (such as an advice of payment) are sent between a payer and payee. The financial document 45 will often be created at process 40 by the payer to provide details of the payment. This financial document is often sent such as by postal mail or by email 50 to the payee.
When the financial document has been created, the payer creates a payment instruction using an in-house application 60 or banking application 70. This payment instruction is sent to the payer financial institution 90 as an electronic payment file 80, and if the payer has sufficient funds, a payment is sent by 90 to the payee financial institution 300 and deposited in the payee's bank account.
The payee can view the payment on their bank statement using their banking application 310 or by viewing paper statements issued by the payee's financial institution.
When the financial document 45 is received by the payee, the payee opens the financial document and will try to match the details (eg. date, payment amount, payer name) with details on the bank statement 315.
A major limitation with this common approach is the financial document 45 and the electronic payment 80 can arrive at the payee at different times, and the payee has the difficult task of matching 320 the financial document to the payment on their bank statement. Matching can be difficult because the payment details on bank statements are often limited to a few fields such as: payment amount, payment description / reference, remitter name, payment date, debit and credit indicator. Such few fields that are permitted by industry standard electronic payment clearance systems, such as clearance system 100, inherently define a limited communication bandwidth for the electronic payments 80 through which they are processed. This limited bandwidth of the conventional electronic payment clearance system 100 has resulted in the separate communication of an electronic payment 80 and the related financial document 25 illustrated in FIG. 1 and the aforementioned mismatching problems associated therewith.